The island nation of Iceland is known for many things--majestic
landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood--but racial
diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans
Jonathan, a free black man who lived and raised a family in early
nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff of
novels.
In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out the story of Hans
Jonathan (also known as Hans Jónatan) in stunning detail. Born into
slavery in St. Croix in 1784, Hans was taken as a slave to Denmark,
where he eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the
country in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared
himself a free man, believing that he was due freedom not only because
of his patriotic service, but because while slavery remained legal in
the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself. He thus became the
subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases in European history,
which he lost. Then Hans ran away--never to be heard from in Denmark
again, his fate unknown for more than two hundred years. It's now known
that Hans fled to Iceland, where he became a merchant and peasant
farmer, married, and raised two children. Today, he has become something
of an Icelandic icon, claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there
and among his descendants in America.
The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly intertwines Hans Jonathan's
adventurous travels with a portrait of the Danish slave trade, legal
arguments over slavery, and the state of nineteenth-century race
relations in the Northern Atlantic world. Throughout the book, Palsson
traces themes of imperial dreams, colonialism, human rights, and
globalization, which all come together in the life of a single,
remarkable man. Hans literally led a life like no other. His is the
story of a man who had the temerity--the courage--to steal himself.
